


Falling

by Kalya_Lee



Series: The Only Certainty [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Reichenbach, Wholock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-06 22:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalya_Lee/pseuds/Kalya_Lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling is just like flying, except there's a more permanent destination.</p>
<p>“I’m the Doctor,” whispers the man, hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. "You're Sherlock Holmes. And you're going to live."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flight

_Flight (n:)_

_1\. An airborne journey.  
_

_2\. To escape; to flee.  
_

_  
_***

The world is quiet here.

Around him, the wind wuthers. It roars like a hound on the moor, and Sherlock can taste it as it slaps him across the face, once, twice, again. A chocolate shop up the street, a chemical factory five miles along. Tainted air in his nose and a dull howl in his mind and absolute silence beneath his feet.

Beneath him, Molly is preparing, rushing about, collecting bandages and readying IV drips and printing forms for herself to sign. Below him, John is staring up, mouth open and eyes wide, gaping and gasping against an uncaring sky. Behind him, a corpse he once knew as a puzzle then a menace then a curse lies, all he ever does is _lie_ , bleeding scarlet into grey concrete.

It’s quiet, all of it. The flat staccato shuffle of grief and death and in-between. Sherlock stands above it all, like he used to long to, and none of it reaches him, like it never did.

It’s too quiet. It’s always been too quiet.

“Goodbye, John,” Sherlock murmurs, breathing against the line. There’s a humming there, buzzing in his ears and warming through his veins, pressing up against the silence in his mind. A static hum, maybe, or the feedback of John’s breaths on the metal wires stretched between them. Sherlock doesn’t care. It’s something, a life sign, a lifeline, and he’ll cling on until he has to let go.

“No,” says John, into Sherlock’s palm. “No, Sherlock, don’t – “

Sherlock closes his eyes. He can feel it, behind his eyelids. That hum. The sound of the universe, drawing him. It buzzes against his palm, against his scalp, against his toes, pulling down, down, down.  There’s only one way down.

The hum swallows him as he falls. It’s too quiet, anyway.

***

He falls through air. He lands in water.

There is a madman in the door. With a towel.

“You – “ Sherlock gasps, the cool metal of a ladder brushing against his fingertips. The man reaches out, grabs at Sherlock’s wrist, yanks him out onto a slick tiled floor. A pool. He’d fallen into a pool. Sherlock gags, by reflex, but there is no chemical tang in his mouth.

“Fresh water,” says the man, smiling slightly. “No chlorine, no ozone, no pollutants. Practically Evian, really. Cleaner.” He offers an arm, and Sherlock takes it, stumbles to his feet. “Thought you’d appreciate it.”

_I do_ , thinks Sherlock. His eyes flicker, and he flinches. The fall was soft, considering, and he’s not concussed or bleeding or even bruised, but the man with the towel is still bewildering. He’s wearing a bow tie, for one thing, and suspenders, and there is a dent on his wrist and a scratch over his eye and calluses on his fingers and good lord, how many jobs does this man _have_ , and what is that hair, and how old are his eyes, they’re impossibly, impossibly old, and how, how in all the universe did he pluck Sherlock out of the sky?

“Who – “ _Are you, sent you, wants me?_ The man shakes his head, pulling Sherlock along and into a hallway, into a room. This room has tiles, too, and a little ditch full of a white liquid, and a harness-like thing that makes Sherlock shudder.

“No time for that now,” the man says, shoving Sherlock into the harness. “We’ve got seconds at best. Don’t worry, Flesh avatar, shouldn’t hurt a bit. I’ll explain later.”

Sherlock is shaking. It could be fear, could be adrenaline, could be the water still trickling in non-chlorinated drops from his lapels, it doesn’t matter. The man smiles again, eyes crinkling at the corners, and it strikes Sherlock as infinitely right, infinitely sad.

“I’m the Doctor,” whispers the man, hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. The warmth of it is strong, reassuring, seeping through his sodden coat, and for a moment the shaking stops. “You’re Sherlock Holmes. And you’re going to live.”

The liquid in the ditch bubbles. Sherlock shivers, and tries to believe.

***

The Flesh avatar is not him, Sherlock decides. Within seconds he can feel its small differences, its little inconsistencies, the odd, plastic invulnerability in the way that it moves. The Flesh avatar is not him.

It is the Flesh avatar’s hand, and not his, clutched within the Doctor’s, and it is the Flesh avatar’s feet pounding madly through winding corridors. It is not his legs that run, stupidly and trustingly and blindly, and it is not his mind racing out of control. It is not his coiled muscles that leap through impossible doors, that send not-his-body back into freefall.

It is not Sherlock that lands.

It is not his throat that clenches against that final burst of wind, not his shoulders that feel the slam as they hit the ground, not his head that cracks open and bleeds across the pavement. It is not Sherlock’s _(pulseless)_ wrist that John grabs, fingers hot with fever and desperation, and when John cries out, it’s not his name he says.

It isn’t Sherlock, in the end, that Molly blinks at and bandages and won’t speak to, her shifting eyes all ruthless efficiency and shining with guilt, relief, guilt. It isn’t Sherlock who thanks her, kisses her cheek, slips away.

It is Sherlock that falls, but it is the Flesh avatar that lands. The Flesh avatar is not him. He knows this, he does.

He feels every second.

***

“Alright, then?” says the Doctor, as Sherlock stumbles into the console room. His voice is soft, concerned, but he does not look up from the panel of buttons spread out in front of him. Sherlock wonders at this for a moment, but the answer is rather simple, really.

“Got lost on the way here, actually,” Sherlock says, evenly. His gaze flickers around the room, landing on the _buffed bronze polished brass gold light shining glass floor_ of it, on the gleam of the walls, on the whirring, humming central console, on everything other than his own hands and feet and the bright blue doors. “I could have sworn that I remembered the route, but I couldn’t seem to find the right door.”

“Oh,” says the Doctor, with an amused look. “She does that. Find a lot of bathrooms, did you? Maybe a linen closet? Don’t mind her, that’s just her way of offering you a towel. Since you didn't have time for one…. Earlier.”

“I see,” says Sherlock, still hovering, uncertain, in the doorway.

The silence stretches out between them, raw and humming. The Doctor fiddles with some circuitry, presses a few buttons, flips a switch. Sherlock’s palms begin to itch.

“You can look,” he snaps, finally. “I’m not going to break in half. You can look.”

The Doctor turns. The Doctor looks.

“Hello,” says the Doctor, smiling. Sherlock raises his eyebrows at him, a practiced gesture, habitual. It does not make him feel any less tired.

The Doctor’s smile grows, turns a little crooked at the edges. “As I’ve said,” he says, shrugging a bit, “I’m the Doctor. I’m from Gallifrey. I’m about twelve hundred years old. Alien. Time Lord. Two hearts. This is my ship, she’s called the TARDIS, she travels in time. Also space. She has a mind of her own, gets a bit stroppy if you drip on her floors, and she’s bigger on the inside. And I’m sorry for the rush job, earlier, but saving people’s lives is a very tricky business. Very tricky.” He claps his hands briskly, and his eyes seem to light with expectation. It lasts about a second under Sherlock’s stare.

“You can ask,” says the Doctor, coaxing. “Go on.”

Sherlock stares, a little longer, considering. The obvious questions present themselves first, _what’s a Time Lord where is Gallifrey what does TARDIS stand for how does it all work?_ Then there are the more interesting ones, like _what was that white stuff why a glass floor why do you have a swimming pool why do you look like a twenty-year-old boy?_

There are important questions, too. _How do you know me? How do you know I don’t like chlorine? Why would you save me? Why do you care?_ Sherlock wants to ask these, and he doesn’t. He’s not sure he’ll like the answers. He’s not sure he wants to hear a lie. He’s not even sure if any of this matters, anymore.

“Where are we going?” he asks, finally. The Doctor’s eyes light up.

“All time and space,” he says, grinning. “Anywhere you like.”

It’s not the truth, but it’s close enough, and Sherlock has a job to do.

“Okay,” says Sherlock, “Okay.”

***  
He kills his first man at three in the morning, in a locked room in central London. The room is dark and musty, smells of damp and decay and desolation, and Sherlock’s hand shivers on the knife.

The man is a killer, Sherlock knows this. He reads it in the grime on the windows, sees it in the glint of his eye, knows it from weeks spent poring over case files and memorizing names, places, crimes. The man is a killer, and he deserves this, every second of this, the terrifying alien wheeze ringing in his ears, the whisper of sharp metal at his throat. The man is a killer, and Sherlock is a killer, and his blood is scarlet and staining and hot as he bleeds out over Sherlock’s hands.

The TARDIS reappears moments later. The doors swing open on their own.

***

“I killed my own people,” says the Doctor, one day, hand hovering still over the console. “But you would’ve known that. You would’ve seen.”

Sherlock doesn’t say a word. His hands are red, or they aren’t, but he can’t tell.

“Your friend, John,” the Doctor continues, casting him a glance, “he’s killed, too.”

“It wasn’t murder,” says Sherlock. His throat sticks. “It was war. It was different.”

“No,” says the Doctor, voice thick with grief and revulsion. His hand comes down on a button, hard, angry, sure.“It isn’t.”

***

The Doctor takes Sherlock places, beautiful places, places that make his eyes light with wonder and his throat catch in ways he doesn’t understand. They visit Apalapuchia, before the quarantine, and relax in the baths on Midnight. Sherlock sees silver skies and crystal spires, runs through fields of apple-scented grass, hangs out the TARDIS doors at she soars over the Medusa Cascade.

The Doctor takes them to every beautiful place he knows, every place that terrifies him, every place that haunts him in his nightmares. He takes them to the places where he’d made his biggest mistakes, and this time he checks and double-checks the history books and reads the scanner first and he gets things right. Sherlock doesn’t know this. The Doctor would never tell him. He refuses to believe that he is making a point.

“Why are you doing this?” Sherlock asks, when they are standing in the Van Gogh room in the Musee D’Orsay. The Doctor is gazing at a picture of a church with a fond, wet smile, and Sherlock’s hands ache from where he’d strangled Moriarty’s favourite blackmailer the night before.

“Because,” says the Doctor, still staring at the painting, “The universe is beautiful. And,” softly, musing, “sometimes it’s just too easy to forget.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, voice raw, “But why? Why does it matter what I forget? Why do you care?”

“Because you’re my friend,” says the Doctor, turning, and his eyes are sad and sincere and they blaze. Sherlock stares, and he has to believe him but he doesn’t, he doesn’t. “Because I love you.”

“No,” Sherlock says. “That’s a lie. It isn’t possible.”

The Doctor smiles, a little weak and a little wry. “I used to think that,” he says, and _that_ is a lie.

“You think that every day,” murmurs Sherlock, and that is true.

***

James Ryder is a thief, a petty criminal, not much of a monster and not much of a threat. Sherlock hadn’t even intended to hurt him. He’d planned on an anonymous tip to the police, the turn of a key in Ryder’s apartment door, another clean arrest for London’s finest. He’d expected it to be easy, one more piece of Moriarty’s web taken out without fuss or fanfare.

He hadn’t expected Ryder to charge him and run, slam up against his shoulder, dash past his startled expression and right through the TARDIS doors.

He _really_ hadn’t expected to end up clinging to the console as those doors snapped open, watching James Ryder, petty criminal, fall, screaming, into dark empty space.

“I didn’t do it,” the Doctor says, later. His eyes are wide, dilated with horror, and his hands shiver as they flail in the pulled-tight air. He’s telling the truth. Sherlock can see it, _raised pulse guilty eyes slight flush above the cheeks_ , had learned to see it, learned to intuit truth and lies before he’d even learned to tie his shoes, but then the sorrow and terror in the Doctor’s eyes would be obvious to even the most dim-witted of people. It churns something in Sherlock’s gut.

“I didn’t… I didn’t touch anything,” says Sherlock. It’s such a weak denial, in his mind. “I wouldn’t know how.”

“No,” says the Doctor, nodding too hard. “The controls are exactly as I left them. And the old girl, she wouldn’t – she wouldn’t.”

_Once you’ve eliminated the impossible_ , thinks Sherlock, feeling sick. “Telepathic circuit,” he murmurs. He’s never wanted to be wrong so much in his life.

The silence that grows here is thick and choking, and it clings. It sticks to Sherlock’s skin, like the bile in his throat, like the irrational instincts in his traitorous, bloodthirsty brain. _I am you_ , it whispers, as if there is anything else to say.

“Right,” says the Doctor, clapping his hands too loudly with deliberate cheer. “I’ll, um. Tea.”

_I am you_ , whispers Sherlock’s voice in Sherlock’s brain as the Doctor slips away. _I am you, willing to do anything. Willing to burn._

The TARDIS hums gently under his fingertips. Sherlock tries not to think of it as an accusation.

***

“You were the best man,” says John, choking on the words, “and the most – _human_ – human being that I have ever known.”

He lays his hand on the slab, cold unfeeling marble that is too dark and too clean and too whole to ever be true, and he is not lying but he is.

Sherlock watches him, and thinks of blood and void and alien, alien impossibility, and cries and cries and _cries_.

***

Sebastian Moran would have been the last, but he wasn’t. Sherlock doesn’t really know why that is. He blames it on the Unpredictability of Man, perhaps, or maybe just on the certainty of the Doctor’s bad driving.

They land maybe a month too early or five minutes too late, and Sherlock had always known better than to underestimate an enemy but somehow he’d forgotten to be careful about underestimating Moran, Moran who’d seemed like nothing but dumb muscle, who’d paled in the shadow of his late great employer, who had been waiting for Sherlock with raw psychotic anger and a knife.

“Colonel Moran,” Sherlock says, coolly, pushing against the rush of blood rising to the knife at his throat. “What a surprise. What, did your rifle run out of bullets?”

Moran does not laugh, not that Sherlock had expected him to. He presses his knee against Sherlock’s ribcage, pushing him into the wall. “I knew you weren’t dead,” he hisses, and there is something vicious in his eyes that makes Sherlock flinch. “I knew. I’m too smart for you, Sherlock Holmes, and I’m going to have you. Right now, right here, I’m going to have you.”

Sherlock breathes. He keeps his eyes trained on the opposite wall. “Sorry,” he says, lacing his voice with arrogance, another useless shield. “You’re not really my type.” The wall remains cruelly blank, no flash of blue in sight. He will keep watching, there is nothing else he can do.

“Shut up,” barks Moran. He smiles, wild and mad and terrifying. “I’ll do the talking, and because I’m nice, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I am going to kill you, nice and slowly, and no one will ever know you weren’t dead to begin with because they’ll never be able to identify your body.” He presses the knife a little deeper, and Sherlock winces, and he is afraid. “And then I am going to find that little army pal of yours, and maybe have a little chat. And then I am going to but a bullet through his head.”

_John_ , thinks Sherlock, like a punch to the gut, and he would shout for him but he isn’t here, and there, a flash, on the wall, but it was small and it is gone and –

“No,” says the Doctor, his voice flat with the fury of a thousand storms. “No, you are not.”

He pulls Moran away with a hand on his shoulder, as if he were a child and not a fully-grown killer, and tightens his grip as Moran’s eyes grow wide. He thinks of the end of all things and the sky on fire, the earth burning and the dying stars at the end of the universe. He thinks of every sun he's seen go out, of every monster he's ever fought. The Daleks and their fear, the Cybermen and their pain. His own people and their power and their anger and their madness. 

He thinks of fear, of bone-numbing terror, thinks it until it colours every corner of his mind. He thinks of loss, of grief, of guilt, of his home gone forever and his murdered children and his friends, lost and broken and left behind. He clings to Moran's shoulders, thumb digging into the soft flesh beneath his shoulder blades, and thinks till tears come to his eyes. 

_I burned them_ , thinks the Doctor, _those monsters and those children and a million, million galaxies, I burned them all._ The fires leap behind his eyes and in his mind he shouts and bleeds and cries, and outside his burning thoughts he clutches and holds and he hangs on. 

He doesn't let go until Moran begins to scream. 

"Thank you," says Sherlock, later, when they're in the TARDIS with the doors shut and John is safe and his vicious sniper is a shrieking wreck of a man. He does not say, _are you alright, you did just kill a man._ He already knows the answer. 

The Doctor nods. He looks down. His hands are just as red as they've always been. 

***

"You're angry," says Sherlock, later still, voice even. The console is getting dusty and his tea is getting cold and his friend is angry. It's just an observation. 

"No," says the Doctor, looking away. "I'm just.... Looking for biscuits. Have you seen my Jammie Dodgers? I need them. For the... Tea."

Sherlock watches him, his driver and saviour and friend, as he ducks under the console and buries himself in cookie crumbs and wires. "Doctor," he says, and it's gentle like it never is. 

"Yes, alright," and the Doctor pokes his head back out. His voice is steady and forcefully light, and he shuts his eyes and breathes like it’s painful. “I don’t do this, Sherlock. I don’t…. hurt people. I don’t. I can’t. That isn’t who I am.”

This is a lie, too, but neither of them want to say it.

“Drop me off, then,” says Sherlock instead. “It’s the logical thing to do, isn’t it? Drop me off somewhere safe and let me handle myself.”

The Doctor opens his eyes. “Sherlock,” he says, gentle and so, so tired. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Sherlock asks, and there really is no answer.

“I could take you home,” says the Doctor, after a moment, smiling wide with apology. “Two years ought to do it. Short hop, really. No trouble.”

“No,” says Sherlock. “That would be cheating.”

He doesn’t know how to explain, can’t tell a time traveller about wasted years and lost months and the grief of being apart, of needing to balance it, to deserve it somehow. He’s never been all that good at explaining himself to begin with. He thinks the Doctor will understand, anyway.

“Alright,” the Doctor says, finally. He smiles, and it could be false, and it could not. “I’ll take you somewhere better.”

It’s not the truth, but it’s close enough.


	2. Destination

_Destination (n:)_ _  
_

_1\. An endpoint, a journey's conclusion._

__2\. A place where someone or something is headed; a goal._   
_

_  
_***

“London!” says the Doctor, like some grand declaration, grinning with pride and kindness and relief. “England. Year Two Thousand and Thirteen. Right out those doors.”

_Home_ , Sherlock thinks, but the blue doors look the same as they always have from the inside, with a gold glow around him and an alien time and place lying beyond. He smiles, but it’s his normal-people smile, and it’s tight, and it hurts.

“Doctor,” he says, quietly. _Thank you_ , he wants to say, because he means it. He does. He means it for every lift, every beautiful sight, for every moment of quiet acceptance after every life he’s taken. He means it for every breath he takes, from the moment he stepped off the roof of Bart’s and every moment after. He can’t say it. He cannot thank the man who helped him become a killer, who bears his scars and his blood and his guilt in undeserved equal parts. No thanks would ever make it right.

“I know,” the Doctor says, and it sounds like _you’re forgiven_. He grabs Sherlock’s phone off the console from where he’d left it, forgotten, for almost two years, and throws it in a high arc into Sherlock’s waiting hands. “If you ever need anything, give me a call, yes?”

Sherlock slips the phone into his pocket. It tugs at the hem of his old coat, a gentle, familiar mooring. “Yes,” he says, “I will.”

***

He goes to Mycroft first. It’s pure pragmatism, he tells himself, because he is home with no resources and it’s the middle of the night and the Doctor has dropped him off right on Brother Dear’s street. He won’t admit that he misses him, or that he needs someone who shares his blood in a way that’s only occasionally murder, but when Mycroft embraces him he has to concede that he’d maybe made the right choice.

He stays the night in Mycroft’s house, with the walls that are neither comfortable gaudy wallpaper nor softly humming bronze, and the unfamiliar familiarity chokes him a little.

Molly smirks at him when he goes to see her the next day, less _haven’t-I-done-well_ than pure confident joy. Lestrade punches his shoulder and laughs with wide-eyed hysteria and hands over all his cigarettes. Mrs Hudson slaps him and cries and then makes him a pot of tea with shaking hands, black with two sugars and the way he’d always used to like it.

 John just stares. _Punch me_ , thinks Sherlock, standing on his _(boring, boring)_ doorstep like a phantom in his black coat and pale skin and impossibility. _Punch me or push me because I deserve it. Forgive me even though I clearly don’t._

“Not dead, then?” says John, his voice cool and empty as the void. Sherlock tries to smile. It won’t make a difference.

“No,” Sherlock says. _Obviously. Unfortunately._

“May I ask how?” John breaks the stare, and it hurts as his eyes skitter away. It hurts like a hundred falls, worse.

“I….” Sherlock says, and stops. He could tell the truth. John would deserve it. It would be less than he deserves. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he says, finally, and that’s true enough.

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, really. A fist in the face, possibly, or a flash of fierce anger in John’s bright blue eyes. A demand, maybe, for an explanation, for an apology, for an answer. _Try me_ , like Mycroft had said, and Sherlock would, because he’d always loved trying John. John who always surprised him, who always pushed back, who always believed.

“You’re right,” John says, dully, “I probably wouldn’t,” and shuts the door in Sherlock’s face.

***

The flat is exactly as he’d left it, with a fine layer of cruelly eloquent dust coating his chair and his bed and his violin. There are a few subtle shifts, though. Like the ruthlessly scrubbed shelves in the fridge, or the cold unused seat of the armchair opposite, or the empty upstairs bedroom.

The colour blue means something completely different now, and scarlet seems to make him violently ill. He has a hatred of gunshots and a terror of knives, and he solves the few cold cases Lestrade handed him with a vengeful efficiency and without looking at the pictures for more than a few seconds at a time.

Quiet means something new now, too. It used to mean thinking, logic puzzles and mind-alleyways, or boredom and holes in the wall. Now it means a phantom humming in his ears and itchy fingertips and endless unanswered texts to John, things like _murder, Thames, 9 pm_ and _Chinese food?_ and _don't be tedious, John, come home. Please._

_Could be dangerous_ , he types one day, for old times’ sake. It really could, actually, if the lead he’s following is worth anything at all, but mostly he sends it because of the little surge of hope that rises in his chest as he clicks the button, the little burst of giddy joy when his phone buzzes in his hand.

_If you die_ , says the screen, _do I get to be the last to know?_

Sherlock doesn’t go out, after all. He doesn’t cry. He lies back on the couch and closes his eyes until the silence of the not-footsteps above him and the not-puttering in the kitchen and the not-breathing in the chair by his ear gets too much to bear, and then he dials a too-long number and listens to the sound of the universe.

He doesn’t throw the phone against the wall, after, but it’s a close thing.

***

“Hello, Pond!” the Doctor cries, when they arrive, throwing his gangly arms around the pretty red-haired girl at the door. Well, pretty red-haired _woman_ , really, what with her glasses and her straight regal back and the fiery glint in her eye. She grins and hugs back, lifting a hand to gently smack the back of the Doctor’s head. 

Sherlock stands back, a few feet away, and watches. For all John had ever said about his social sensitivity or lack thereof, he has always known the value of a private moment. And if the Doctor relaxes a little too far into the embrace, if there’s a slight tremor in his arms that only Sherlock sees, well. He does, on occasion, know how to keep his mouth shut.

“And who’s _this_?” asks the woman, straightening up with a wink that’s meant to be friendly more than anything else. The Doctor clears his throat and reaches back to pull Sherlock into the doorway.

“Amy, this is my friend, Sherlock,” he says, with something of a proud smile. “Sherlock, Amy Pond.”

“Ah,” says Amy. “The detective. The one with the funny hat.” She narrows her eyes at Sherlock, and he has the distinct feeling of being _examined_ , taken apart and seen and understood. It’s the most familiar of gazes, for him, but he’s usually on the other side of them. It’s disconcerting. “Wait, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Oh,” says the Doctor, shuffling awkwardly. “Damn. Must have undershot.”

“Oh, you moron. It’s twenty-twelve, thanks for asking,” says Amy, rolling her eyes. She grabs Sherlock by the sleeve and yanks him into the house. “Rory!”

There is the sound of pans clanking from down the hall, and a dryly gentle male voice calls back, and Amy is chattering away with the Doctor and the door makes a satisfying _click_ as it shuts, and it isn’t quiet in this house, not at all. 

It isn’t what he needs, either, but it’s better than nothing. For the first time tonight, Sherlock breathes.

***

Dinner is a simple enough affair, home-cooked and basic and really only enough for two, but Amy whips up a large bowl of custard to make up the shortfall. With fish fingers. Sherlock tries to fathom the psychological implications of such a choice, but it’s just a bit beyond him.

They tell stories, Amy and Rory, about their travels. About racing down corridors together, fighting treacherous foes. Joining the roman legion. Being chased by the CIA. Falling through cracks and rebooting the universe. The Doctor rambles on about President Nixon and Amy laughs and Rory smiles tolerantly and holds her hand, and Sherlock thinks of running, real, proper _running_ with his shoes firmly on London pavement and John at his side. For all that the talk breaks up the quiet in his head, it makes him too hungry for home, and he’s streets away and a year too late, and the stories are everything he needs and nothing like it at all.

“You take care of him,” Amy says, fiercely, pulling Sherlock into a tight hug at the door. Beside her, Rory is lecturing the Doctor about something to do with _crossing your own timestream_ and _you said that was a bad idea_ and _I swear, Doctor, if you make those damn cracks appear again just to pop by for dinner so help me_. Amy doesn’t seem to be listening. Sherlock hasn’t known her for long, but he _observes_ , and if she’s passing up a chance to nag either one of her boys she’s got to really mean it.

“I mean it,” continues Amy, and Sherlock almost laughs. It feels oddly freeing. “He’s my best friend and I love him and I would _die_ before I see him hurt, so you’d better treat him right, mister.”

Her eyes sear into him with a burning naked sincerity, and he thinks of _three bullets, three gunmen, three victims_ and the wind on the roof at the end of the world. _I understand_ , he thinks, and he does.

He looks over Amy’s shoulder, at the Doctor smiling uncomfortably, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, and he sees those hands on Moran’s shoulders, passing him a towel, making him a cup of tea. He looks up, meets Amy’s sharp gaze, and smiles, bitingly ironic but true.

“He takes care of me,” Sherlock says, and it isn’t truth but it’s close enough.

***

“John,” says Sherlock, clutching his phone to his ear. There are just some things you can’t say by text. He clears his throat. “These…. Friendsof mine. Amy and Rory.”

The Doctor had told him, going home, about the way they loved each other. About the Last Centurion, waiting two thousand years for his love. About the Girl who Waited, who tore through time to have her years with him. About how he’d lost them both, his Glorious Ponds, how she’d thrown herself from a building to try and save him. How when they’d fallen, they’d fallen together.

John is his Rory, Sherlock knows. His friend and his anchor and his rock. John who always calmed him, who put up with his madness, who stood like a sentry at his side, guarding his back. John, who waited for him. And Sherlock is mad, like Amy was, prepared to fight for him. Prepared to burn. Prepared to fall.

There is silence on the line, a soft static hum. John is listening. Hope rises in Sherlock’s throat, and he clears it again. He can explain, he knows. He can make him understand.

“They travelled together,” he says, and _oh_ , this is so much harder than it should be. “They loved each other. And he, they. They…. Looked after each other.”

_You are my Rory_ , he thinks, desperately. _You waited for me. I would fight for you. I would rip and tear and burn for you._

“He…. Rory. He waited for Amy. Because he loved her, he…. Waited.” _You are my Rory_ , he thinks, and his grip on the phone tightens. “And she….”

There is a click. The line goes dead. 

_I would burn,_ thinks Sherlock. _I am burning._

*** 

The TARDIS takes two hours to arrive. 

Sherlock wonders at that. The TARDIS’ navigation system had been perpetually on the blink during his time there, true, and the Doctor had had a habit of landing a month early or a year late, but after Moran, well. He’d never known the Doctor to be this far off since. He wonders what the reason is, this time.

He has seven theories by the time he hears the engines hum, and none of them are good.

There are a pair of shoes by the bright blue doors, stained with pale yellow mud and geranium pollen, and three of Sherlock’s theories disappear. A long white scarf hangs off a lever on the console, and a black tuxedo jacket lies crushed on the glass floor, crumpled by angry hands. That narrows it down to two. 

There is a red bow tie lying by his feet, ripped and frayed nearly in half. _One_ , thinks Sherlock, and steps around the console.

“Sherlock Holmes,” says the Doctor, laughing and bitter. He is sitting on the glass floor, head tipped back and mashing a number of brightly-coloured buttons, knees drawn up to his chest. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and there is a hole in his right sock. His collar is bare. “You called?”

“I needed you,” Sherlock says, voice like silk in the silent air. He steps forward, sure and steady. He wishes he knew what to do.

The Doctor laughs, a little silent chuckle. He rubs his hands over his face. “I am not,” he says, smiling crookedly in Sherlock’s general direction, “what anyone needs right now.”

_You had a meeting with my brother_ , Sherlock thinks, because he _sees_ , because that is what he does. _You had a meeting with my brother which did not go well. You stood in his garden and then you walked away, and then you went out with someone who left lipstick marks on your scarf and your cheek and broke your hearts, and now you don’t know who you are anymore_.

“Don’t,” the Doctor snaps, looking away. “I know you can – just don’t. Don’t say anything. Please.”

Sherlock pauses, then sits down next to him. His legs are too long to cross gracefully, but he manages. “I wasn’t going to,” he murmurs, and that’s not a lie.

They sit in the quiet for a long time. Sherlock used to do this, two years and forever ago, used to sit thinking when John was in the armchair opposite, used to counter John’s thousand-yard stare with his own cold constancy and concern hidden by the fingers steepled under his nose. The familiarity, the _comfort_ of it, is startling. The Doctor isn't _his_ doctor, Sherlock knows, isn’t even a decent facsimile, isn’t what he needs. But then again _his_ doctor hadn’t answered his calls, and Sherlock isn’t even sure of what he needs anymore.

Slowly, slowly, he pulls himself to his feet. “Thank you,” he says, with un-Holmeslike sincerity, “for coming.”

The Doctor looks up. For a short moment his fist unclenches against his thigh. “Thank you,” he says, “for calling.”

***

“You know what, Sherlock?” John asks, voice crackling with anger and static over the phone. This is not his is-that-a-bloody-headirritation or his stop-ruining-my-dates aggravation. This is rage and hurt and frustration that cuts to the bone, and this is exactly the tone of voice that makes Sherlock run and disappear and ache for a cigarette.

But this is the eighth time that Sherlock has called John in four days, and the first time John has answered. Sherlock grits his teeth and lets him talk.

“I’m not angry,” continues John, “because you jumped. I couldn’t be _angry_ about that if I tried. And I’m definitely, _positively_ not angry that you survived.”

Sherlock says nothing to this. He’d guessed that already, of course, and there is no appropriate response to a statement like that. Besides, things don’t always go so well when he tries to explain.

“I am angry,” John says, and his voice rises and dips and _aches_ like a stormy sea, “because you didn’t tell me. Not because you left me to grieve. Because you left me _behind_. I am angry that you didn’t take me with you, that whatever it was you were doing you decided you were better off doing it alone.” John laughs, dark and bitter, and Sherlock had wanted so much to hear him laugh again but not like this, never like this. “Alone protects you, I suppose,” and his wry broken smile can be heard loud and clear through the telephone, “I should have guessed.”

“John,” Sherlock says, reproachful and a little desperate. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, besides _that’s not true_. He’s not sure if it is or isn’t, really. It doesn’t matter.

“No,” says John, just as reproachful and tinged with a sharp indignant bite. “No, I am _talking_ , and I never talk, Sherlock, so you do _not_ get to interrupt.” He breathes, long and deep, and Sherlock doesn’t. 

“You think that you’re the only one who can protect the ones you love. You think that you’re the only one who’s strong enough, or weak enough, or, damn it, _smart_ enough to risk it all. You thought – you _think_ – that I’m not capable of protecting myself, or protecting _you_ , and you never – you never even gave me the _choice_.” Sherlock hears a rustle, and a crackle, and that isn’t John sobbing, it can’t be. “I _shot a man_ for you, Sherlock, and you never gave me that choice.”

_I’m sorry_ , thinks Sherlock, and all his reasons, his perfectly-formed arguments, seem to fall away. He thinks of John’s bullet in his killer’s shoulder, of the powder burns on John’s fingers, and he wonders how he’d missed it, if he’d have acted any differently if he hadn’t.

“You think that you’re the only one capable of loving someone that much,” John says, soft and hurt and almost gentle. “Or you think that no one could ever have that kind of love for you.”

_And_ , Sherlock thinks, _that’s true, that’s true, that’s true_.

John sighs. “One day, Sherlock Holmes,” he says, “you will realize that you were always wrong. And then maybe you will understand how it felt to be me.”

The silence when he hangs up is deafening. Sherlock still has nothing to say.

***

Sometimes, when he’s quiet, Sherlock can hear the clink of a spoon against a mug, the whistle of the kettle in the kitchen, a phantom sigh or mutter or laugh. Sometimes he can hear the pad of footsteps upstairs, or the turn of a key in the door. Sometimes he can hear a voice, just an echo. John’s voice.   

_You never gave me the choice_ , it says, tonight. _You were always wrong_.

Sometimes, when he’s quiet, Sherlock can hear engines.

***

“I don’t do this,” says the Doctor, crossly. He’s got his jacket on this time, a dark-coloured thing, and a straight tie that itches somewhere under Sherlock’s skin. “Giving help. I don’t do this anymore. It’s not me.”

Sherlock stands outside the TARDIS, looking in. It’s changed since he’s last seen it. He knows it’s horribly naive to be surprised, because _everything_ changes, but it’s unsettling to see that that’s so true.  “You said that to me,” he says, “once before.”

“I meant it that time, too,” the Doctor says, but he doesn’t close the doors.

“You had a friend, you said,” Sherlock says, stepping inside. It’s too white, laboratory-shining, unnervingly inscrutable. The living room, _his_ living room, is behind him, warm through the still-open doors. Somehow, somewhere, that must be symbolic. “In a parallel universe. You left her there.”

The Doctor sighs, like he’s tired, like it couldn’t possibly matter. The first is true, of course. The second is debatable. “Yes.”

Sherlock looks up. His eyes are cold. It is then that the Doctor realizes that he’s wearing his coat. “You could leave me.”

He knows exactly what he is asking.

_It’s a whole different universe_ , the Doctor thinks but doesn’t say. _Everything is different. You won’t belong. You’ll never see your brother again, or your parents, or even me. You may not even exist, over there. You’ll be alone._

He doesn’t need to say these things. This is Sherlock Holmes he is talking to, after all. He already knows.

“You would leave him?” he asks, instead, because that’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it. A man who is _home_ who no longer belongs by your side, would you leave him? “You would leave him, like I made her leave?”

Sherlock drops his gaze. His voice is full of loathing. “I failed him,” he says, hard and sorrowful. “I was wrong.” 

It’s answer enough.

“What makes you think,” the Doctor says, and it’s raw, it’s haunted him for the longest time, “that _he_ would leave _you_?”

***

They drift past stars, instead. The Doctor turns the oxygen bubble on, and they sip tea while sitting in the doorway.

“I’m staying with friends in Victorian London,” the Doctor says, smiling just slightly. “They borrow your name sometimes. My fault, I suppose. I set a precedent.”

Sherlock laughs. For a moment the air clears.

***

The Doctor drops him off at home. Sherlock doesn’t complain.

“I don’t know what to say,” he says instead, and he’s always hated admitting weakness but he’s too lost now to care. He’s been weak here before, anyway, he’s been weakest behind those blue doors.

The Doctor laughs. For just a second, it’s bitter. “You’re Sherlock Holmes,” he says, smiling like a razor. “You should know better than to think I do.”

Sherlock steps out. The room is so warm.

“Tell him,” says the Doctor, haltingly, and Sherlock doesn’t turn, doesn’t make it harder. “Tell him what I never told them. Tell him you should never have left him behind.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock says, because this is a gift, but he means it for everything.  

***

Sherlock stands on John’s doorstep at eight the next morning.

John glares, but he doesn’t close the door.

“I needed you,” says Sherlock, as honestly as he can. “I needed you, in my life, and if I’d brought you with me I could have lost you. I am _unmoored_ without you, John. You protected me, and you saved me, and when it came down to hurting you or crying at your grave I made that choice because I couldn’t bear it if you chose something else. I couldn’t lose you, so I hurt you. I am sorry.”

“You,” says John, stiff and controlled, “were a selfish bastard.”

 “Yes,” Sherlock says, and a smile breaks out at the truth of it. “I was.”

And John leans forward and punches him in the face.

Sherlock’s whole face smarts, but his nose and teeth feel untouched. This observation makes the pain oddly bearable. _Somebody loves you_ , says a voice in his head, and through the spots in his eyes he can see that John has begun to cry.

“You should have trusted me,” John says, choking on the words. “I would have gone anywhere with you. I would have done anything. Sherlock, you were my _life_.”

“I know,” says Sherlock, “I’m sorry.”

They stand there for a long time. John weeps. Sherlock just stands. He feels like his heart is breaking open, watching John cry, but it’s a good kind of pain. It feels honest, like letting go.

“I never should have left you,” he says, and it’s the truest thing he’ll ever say.

“No,” says John, wiping his eyes. “You never should.”

“Come home,” says Sherlock, and that is pleading, and that is truer.

“Alright,” says John, and Sherlock lands.

***

The Doctor finds it, days later, tucked behind a lever on his too-stark console. He’d chosen this design himself, after Amy and Rory, after the Holmes boys and River and the blood on his hands. It’s cold, he has to admit, but it’s clean and it’s pure and it leaves no place for sentiment, for whimsy, for tears.

He finds the card because it’s coloured and cream, warm enough to stand out against the white.

 It’s a postcard, bought in the twenty-first century, from the Musee D’Orsay. It’s printed with a Van Gogh, the painting of the church, and it’s signed in Sherlock Holmes’ handwriting. As the Doctor turns it over, he will swear that his hands do not shake.

He smiles when he reads it, broken and aching but real, and surprised. He wonders why he’s surprised. He wonders what, exactly, he expected it to say.

It does not say _thank you_ , or _I love you_ or _I’m sorry_ or _goodbye_. But then again, maybe it does.

_One day_ , it reads, _you will realize that you were always wrong_.

He keeps the card with his bow tie. When he remembers who he is, he will read it again.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year, everyone! This work is meant as a sequel to Tax, but can be read on its own. It is a little darker this time, but it felt more real that way. :) Hope you enjoy.


End file.
